Hurricanes, lightning and alligator-filled swamps made Florida an unwelcome candidate for statehood, yet it continues to draw more and more people annually. In 1900, Indianapolis, not Detroit, was the center of the auto industry, and endurance tests there resulted in the establishment of the Indy 500 in 1911. On May 18, 1980, America's most economically destructive volcanic erupts at Mt. St. Helens and rocks Washington State. Escaping religious persecution, Brigham Young leads twelve thousand Mormons on an exodus into the Utah desert in search of paradise. Roger Williams fled Massachusetts in the 16th century and founded a colony of religious tolerance in Rhode Island.

• Edward Herrmann